Lady Mary Charlotte Anne Bagot, neé Wellesley-Pole (1786-1845)

This subsection of my blog is devoted to Mary Bagot, who was the wife of Charles Bagot, Britain’s first ambassador to the United States following their 3-year war 1812-1815. Bagot’s task was a tricky one because the Americans were smarting over British recent destruction of Washington and New York, and there were many complex issues yet to be resolved. When he set foot in America in May 1816 Bagot was only 34 with little diplomatic experience. Yet his gentlemanly conduct and sense of fair play soon won the respect and friendship of the American people and he became well liked in Washington. Mary Bagot played a major role in establishing Bagot’s social credentials because she was a fashion revalation,  a genuine beau monde character injected straight into American high life. She literally arrived straight from Savile Row, leaving dandy friends such as ‘Beau Brummell’ and Lord Byron behind, and presented America with a perfect model of Regency style and manners. In her public face Mary was considered adorable and much sought after at elite gatherings. Yet privately she yearned for home and her journal reveals her misery at being made ‘an exile in Yankeeland’. This blog will concentrate on extracts from Mary’s journal which runs from 1816-1819 and describes the agony of separation from her children and parents, the long and difficult passage to America aboard HMS Niger, and her impressions of this strange and alien country and its people. I will intersperse this with posts about Mary’s life to bring some colour to her story and flesh to her bones.

I hope to show that Mary Bagot was every bit as wild and dangerous as her younger brother ‘Wicked’ William Long-Wellesley. But her sojourn in America proved a turning point,  and the scandalous behaviour of her youth was replaced by admiration and respect as a key representative of His Majesty’s Government in diplomatic circles.